I recently tried Shock: for the first time. It was a mixed experience; some scenes were wonderful, some dull, some protagonist/antagonist interactions faltered, some shone. All in all, I felt the game didn't have strong enough guidelines and advice for play.

Then I read a few fora (here, glyphpress, Story Games), and found all sorts of things like:

- Who frames scenes after the first scene- Who fills out the grid & how, with how many issues & shocks each/altogether- Praxis should be the last thing the group decides on

Joshua, how about compiling all this stuff in one place? It's essential information. I want this game to work for me, and I have a strong feeling it can, but (speaking as "customer to publisher", not "playtester to designer"): The book is incomplete. You need to help us more.

I think most of our rules questions have been clarified by what's posted on the fora. However, there's always the need for my group(s) to improve on narrativist techniques (like bangs) that seem to be fairly essential for this style of play.

I want to play again - but I'll certainly be paying much more attention to making good protagonist/antagonist pairs, ones that work in the types of conflict-oriented stories Shock is designed for.

Every time the Protag player's turn comes up, they say what they're doing now. The Antag player gets to twist everything the Protag says.

Sometimes, it happens the other way around. If that's OK with the Protag player, it's OK. For the most part, that makes it easier on the Protag, though. Same with setting Intents in a conflict: if the Antag sets hir Intent first, the Protag gets to say something in response. But sometimes it happens and it's not worth interrupting play for.

Logged

the glyphpress's games are Shock: Social Science Fiction and Under the Bed.